188 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 



means from which we have not greatly deviated, as 

 is evidenced by the traces. of irrigation plants re- 

 ferred to in an earlier chapter, plants destroyed un- 

 doubtedly by volcanic action. Throughout south- 

 eastern New Mexico the results of such action are 

 widespread — said indeed by competent authorities 

 to be the most extraordinary of their kind in the 

 world. Volcanic dams yet discernible prove to the 

 satisfaction of many geologists that the still wilful 

 Rio Grande once spilled itself over the brim of the 

 western mesa into the Mexican basin, but was 

 forced by the above mentioned eruptions to eat its 

 way through the rocky range to the south, thus 

 forming the present narrow canon leading into Tex- 

 as and finally to the Gulf. In our Valley are some 

 who believe in the existence of a Lost River flowing 

 in the depths of the earth to which it was consigned 

 by the same tremendous upheavals. That such 

 buried streams do exist in certain portions of New 

 Mexico is incontrovertible. 



In more recent times, driven down to the Valley 

 of the Great River by the ruthless and predatory 

 Athabascans, progenitors of the more modern 

 Apaches, came representatives of comparatively 

 peaceful and industrial races, from whom spring 

 the Pueblos, Zunis, Oueres, Pimas and other allied 

 tribes. Many of these, however, took refusre in 

 cave or cliff dwellings or on the summits of lofty 

 monoliths a few hundred miles to the north of us. 

 On one such monolith stands, inhabited by the 

 A comas to this day, perhaps the finest pueblo in the 

 South West. From these high vantage grounds the 



